An ever-evolving love for cooking, entertaining, and living

Menu

Basil, Lemon, and Jalapeno Pesto

For our anniversary my husband and I enjoyed a nice dinner out at one of our favorite wine bars the night before, La Madia. On our actual anniversary we decided to make a meal at home. We got a nice bottle of champagne and I was going to plan a meal to compliment it, but he was dead set on having a hamburger for dinner. I like a burger as much as the next girl, but it wasn’t exactly what I was in the mood for. Instead, we drank beers and grilled out, typical. While he made his burger I tried to get creative. It started with making a pesto…

For the pesto I took a bunch of my overgrown basil and mint to use as the base. I used primarily basil as it is threatening to bolt, but I’m really into mint so I had to use a bit of that to round it out.

Ingredients:

-1 cup of basil

-1/3 cup of mint

-juice from 2 lemon wedges

-1/2 jalapeno, diced

-2 cloves garlic

-1/4 cup olive oil

Directions:

Add everything to the blender or food processor except the olive oil. I would add this slowly so as to not make it too runny, may not take the full amount. Mine came out a little juicy looking, but it had good flavor.

My husband put the pesto on his burgers with tomatoes, basil leaves, grilled onions, and peppers. It looked pretty tasty, but I was looking for something a little lighter and fresher.

First I put the pretzel roll on the grill, cut side down. After a minute I took it off to spread the pesto on the top and bottom and lined it with fresh mozzarella cheese. To melt the cheese, I put the bread back on the grill, but turned the grill off so it’s hot enough for melting the cheese but not burn the outside of the bread.

Next I filled with tomatoes, fresh basil, a grilled onion, pepper, and slice of grilled zucchini. So good! We ate outside so the lighting in the picture for the final product is extremely poor and doesn’t do it justice, so you will have to use your imagination.